Durango
Hostile and the Plungerman

semi-fiction, semi-fact
by Wade Nelson.

Like a character out of a
Saturday Night Live skit, the Plungerman arrived in Durango
late one afternoon. Seeing the Plungerman padding his way
down the staircase to the Durango Hostel and Ski Dorm, Dave,
the Hostel's proprietor ran inside to get his forty-five.
"Thirty eight might not be enough for this one," he thought,
selecting the larger of his two firearms.

After all it's not every day
you see a three hundred pound man wearing a tie die shirt,
red white and blue suspenders, and 'I Dream of Jeannie'
pants coming at you with a toilet plunger stuck to his
forehead."

Don't make me use
it!

The Durango Hostel sits a
hundred yards from the train depot. The Durango &
Silverton is a narrow gauge steam train that attracts
thousands of tourists to Durango each summer. The hostel is
one of the few remaining houses in a block jammed with
t-shirt shops, restaurants, and places where you can pick up
a genuine rubber tomahawk. Next door to the hostel is Family
Craft Memorials, a monument (tombstone) company whose typos
and spelling errors form the steps of a shared staircase.
For whatever reason all sorts of people "Just passing
through" meander their way down the staircase of bereavement
to the outdoor table that serves as a gathering place for
the international students, visitors, and travelers staying
at the Hostel. The path seems to magnetically attract those
people finding themselves on the road. Such was the case of
PlungerMan.

"Maybe he'll just keep
going," Dave thought, silently hoping he would. "Are you
here with HIM?" Dave asked two young women coming down the
stairs. "NO!" they answered in unison. "Come inside, I'll
get you a room" Dave said, scurrying them away from whatever
mayhem was about to occur. Of course, the PlungerMan didn't
keep going. He stopped, examined a chair as if assessing its
ability to support his weight, then sat down.

The little table out behind
the hostel is where Durango's best night court is held.
Foreign students marvel at Americans ignorance of geography,
world leaders other than their own, and international
affairs. The next day's trip to Mesa Verde is a frequent
topic. Discussions of German beer's superiority to American
brew are frequent. John the resident sage and part-time
Hostel handyman regularly espouses his theories on
government conspiracies, politics, Jackson Hole, and issues
he sees facing the College of Santa Fe, where he resides for
much of the year.

John took an immediate
interest in PlungerMan, spending the remains of the day
talking with him; also consuming a few cold ones. By
twilight Dave was out at the table too, along with Steve and
a half dozen hostelers. Night fell, and Coors Court was
called to order. Dave sat there, quietly wondering to
himself how exactly PlungerMan got the plunger to adhere to
his forehead. Apparently he wasn't the only one.

Steve, by now feeling the
effects of a considerable beer buzz, suddenly stood up,
reached across the table, and grabbed hold of the
PlungerMan's plunger. PlungerMan, a.k.a. Wayne Hoskins, was
pulled forward in his chair until the plunger let go of his
bald head with a pleasant farting sound, then fell backwards
into his chair, nearly falling over backwards. As everyone
looked on in horror he caught himself, swung forward again,
overcorrecting, at which point John plastered the plunger
right back where it had come from. The PlungerMan again
swung backwards, forwards and backwards in his chair as
Steve continued to plunge him five or six times before
PlungerMan kind of fell sideways and said "Whoa! That's
enough".

No one knew what mayhem
PlungerMan was capable of doing if someone messed with his
rubber and wooden cranial appendage. Dave's hand went for
his .45 in case copper jacketed death traveling at three
quarters the speed of sound became necessary; either to put
down a rampaging PlungerMan or to put Steve out of his
misery. Everyone sat there watching, with jaws open and eyes
frozen. An eternity of silence, panic, and wondering passed
before everyone began laughing, that is, once the PlungerMan
himself began to laugh. Suddenly, PlungerMan wasn't
threatening. He was just a guy with a plunger.

The story goes on with
PlungerMan getting in trouble for waving a chrome revolver
in the air at a local liquor store and getting sent to the
local mental health center for a few weeks of treatment and
a fresh round of anti-psychotic meds. He came back, acting
quite normal as long as he took his little white pills, and
even did a weeks' construction work with Dave. Dave somehow
learned he used bag-balm to keep his plunger attached, a
substance farmers use on the udders of cows to keep them
soft and healthy.

When plungers
are outlawed, only PlungerMen will
...

One night in El Rancho, a
Durango bar with a reputation for brawling going all the way
back to Jack Dempsey's days, the PlungerMan swilled an
entire, 10 oz (the large size) bottle of McIlhenny's Tabasco
sauce. The crazy part was that this wasn't on a dare, a $20
bet or anything. He just did it, in true NIKE fashion. One
guy's girlfriend, seeing the PlungerMan bellying up next to
them and chugging the Tabasco said "Let's get out of
here...NOW!". Her boyfriend held her back and insisted "No,
I want to see what happens next!"

The bartender, an
acquaintance of mine, said he came down the bar, took one
look at PlungerMan, and lost it. Brandon turned away as fast
as he could, gagging back a howling laugh that caused him to
nearly choke on his own snot. He said he was praying the
PlungerMan wouldn't get offended and come across the bar. At
300-plus pounds, he knew there was no way he and the rest of
El Rancho's bouncers could bounce the PlungerMan without at
least one person requiring an ambulance. He said he regained
his composure an eternity of a minute or two later. Biting
his tongue so hard he could taste blood, Brandon faced the
PlungerMan, looked him straight in the plunger, and said:
"What'll you have?" An insane desire followed, he says, to
follow up that question with: "Let me guess - shot of
Sani-Flush and a Beer?"

PlungerMan quit taking his
medications and got in trouble with the law again. Something
about outstanding bench warrants, etc. Dispatch radioed a
single sheriff to go pick up Wayne Hoskins at 543 East
Second, the Durango Hostel, for arraignment on a relatively
minor failure to appear charge. What the deputies apparently
heard over the radio was that Wayne Hoskins had been
"Sighted at 543 East Second and that he was "Deranged and
Hostile." None of the deputies knew the chrome revolver
Wayne had been waving around the liquor store was a cap
pistol. Every available cruiser responded, as law
enforcement officials are prone to do when one of their own
is endangered. Deranged, yes. Dangerous? Wayne had never
shown any signs of being hostile although the cap pistol HAD
been loaded. They came, six cruisers worth, lights and
sirens, pistols drawn, sawed off shotguns cocked and pumped.

543 E 2nd Ave

But there was no Wayne, just
a number of quite surprised hostelers, including Dave, who
sat quietly during the cordon and search operation hoping
like hell none of the peace officers asked what the big
unregistered bulge in his pocket was.

The PlungerMan was located
several hours later sitting on a park bench in Gateway Park.
He was arrested by a pair of those cleanly groomed
twenty-three year old policemen who look like young boys to
the rest of us. One of these natural born killers, err,
public safety officers kept a .38 pointed at PlungerMan at
all times, perhaps in case he decided to
stampede.

PlungerMan was read his
Miranda rights, acknowledged that he understood them, and
was handcuffed. He went peacefully, although climbing into
the back of the police cruiser without the use of his hands
was a formidable task. But PlungerMan was up to it. He was a
formidable kind of guy. Anyone who could wear a toilet
plunger on his head in public day after day had to be
tough.

After a fifteen minute
hearing in LaPlata County Municipal Courtroom #2A, before
the Honorable Greg Wymann, still wearing his plunger, Wayne
was released on his own recognizance. All he had to do was
promise the judge (who happened to be a former Deadhead) to
show up for his next hearing, and "Do his best" to keep
taking his medications. The sad truth was nobody in LaPlata
County wanted PlungerMan in their jail or their halfway
house. A 300 pound man with a toilet plunger affixed to his
forehead was a liability. A big, unknown liability.

Red-faced, the Durango
police department refuses to discuss the hostel raid. They
refused to re-enact the botched arrest for a special
bloopers episode of "COPS." The PlungerMan's crimes didn't
quite merit an appearance on America's Most Wanted. No
Wanted poster for Wayne was ever produced: Warning! Suspect
has been known to pack a .32 caliber toilet plunger with an
11" pine barrel! If you have seen suspect do not attempt to
remove the plunger yourself, but contact plumbing code
enforcement officers. It would have been an instant
collectors item. People would have been breaking into Post
Offices to steal copies of the PlungerMan Poster.

The PlungerMan went back to
the Hostel after his court appearance and said some things
that made it sound like he was taking off.. John told Dave
he was worried about Wayne, something just didn't sound
right.

The PlungerMan story comes
to an end at Wastewater Park. Durango's Gateway Park is
known by locals as "Wastewater Park" because of the adjacent
sewage treatment plant. The city fathers covered the
cylindrical shit processors with faux bronze windows to give
the place the appearance of a hi-tech office building. The
camouflage is exceedingly effective. Thousands of
unsuspecting tourists visit the park each summer and stroll
past the processing plant without ever realizing what it is.
(Except when the wind blows the wrong direction) PlungerMan
was last seen on a bench at Wastewater Park sipping a quart
of Old Milwaukee from a brown paper bag.

The treatment plant makes
its unpleasant discharge into the Animas River a few hundred
feet downstream from where a bend in the river demanded by
the presence of Smelter Mountain offers kayakers the most
exciting rapids, obstacles, swirling vortexes, and "holes"
along its entire length. The aquatic thrills include the
nationally famous (at least among kayakers) Santa Margarita
Hole, sometimes called "The Flusher" because of the number
of kayakers it turns upside down. Ignoring the threat of
coliform bacteria and the occasional "Brown Trout," kayakers
love the place.

The Santa Rita
Hole - no shit!

Dave's girlfriend Sarah was
taking an evening stroll along the riverwalk with a friend
the day after the PlungerMan disappeared. Suddenly her
friend's golden retriever unleashed himself, bolted twenty
feet ahead of them and leapt into the swirling whitewater.
The dog was immediately sucked under by the deadly hydraulic
forces of the Santa Rita hole. Sarah's friend began
screaming "Scoop" at the top of her lungs. An eternity,
well, actually only about a minute or two later Scoop popped
his shaggy head out of the water about ten feet downstream
from "the Flusher" and swam ashore with something in his
mouth: A wooden plunger handle.

Wayne's demise is, of
course, only conjectured. No body, no foul. The police
refuse to officially declare Wayne Hoskins missing. "He may
have just returned to California" Detective Randy Wankowski
is quoted as having said.

Dead or alive, no other
guest in the history of the Durango Hostel has ever created
the excitement of the PlungerMan. He was loved because
everyone could look down or laugh at him, even himself.
Several Germans and Aussies who were guests at the hostel at
that time still send Dave postcards asking the fate of the
PlungerMan. His status and whereabouts is
unknown.

Should you happen to see
PlungerMan, alive and plunging, please tell him the folks at
the Durango Hostel and the Police Department say all is
forgiven. A PlungerMan Sensitivity & Awareness Float,
co-sponsored by the Durango Hostel and Southwest Colorado
Mental Health has been proposed for Durango's annual
Snow-Down parade, a satirical affair akin to Pasadena's
Doo-Dah parade. Prospective PlungerMen can audition at the
Hostel.

p.s. I was told by a friend
that PlungerMan was picked up by TV cameras panning the
crowd at a rifle competition at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.
NBC reporter Dick Enberg commented on his appearance and
"unusual" appendage. A letter from this writer to NBC/Enberg
went unanswered.

p.s.s. A second "public"
sighting of PlungerMan was also reported to me. A massive
public demonstration followed a 1997 incident in which some
NYPD officers violated the civil rights of a suspect with,
among other things, a toilet plunger. Amongst the crowd of
angry protestors was, according to wire service reports, an
"Unusually large bald man wearing a toilet plunger affixed
to his forehead."

p.s.s.s. Was PlungerMan an
alien? According to Warner Brother's Brad Turrel, Executive
Vice-President of Network Communications "Viewers who
tracked the show (Roswell) via the Internet organized a mass
mailing of Tabasco, the aliens' sauce of choice,..." Does
this explain PlungerMan's strange thrist?

Copyright 1994/2000 Wade H.
Nelson

domaininq (at]
wadenelson. com

2002 Update
on the Plungerman

Alas, nothing definitive has been
heard from, or of, the PlungerMan since 1997. We can only hope all is
well with such a brave, and prepared-for-anything individual, one
whose headpiece served as a reminder to all of us of the rubber-like
flexibility, combined with oak-strong resolve required when life's
problems threaten to overflow our lives, and our
bathrooms.